Cross-channel conversations with context aware transition between channels

ABSTRACT

A method for engaging in cross-channel communication between an agent and a user of a contact center, the method including: engaging the user in a first communication session via a first communication channel; providing the user a link to a second communication channel; receiving actuation of the link; retrieving data associated with the first communication session in response to actuation of the link; and engaging the user in a second communication session via the second communication channel, wherein the second communication session is associated with the retrieved data associated with the first communication session.

FIELD

Embodiments of the present invention are directed to systems and methodsfor operating contact centers and, more particularly, to systems andmethods for contact centers to monitor the social media landscape and toengage with customers via social media channels.

BACKGROUND

Social media is gaining more and more prevalence in the businesslandscape with significant consequences for the businesses community.Online social media sites like Facebook and Twitter each have a largemembership base. A public post by a member of one of these social sitescan be quickly shared and viewed by many users online. This hassignificant implications for business marketing and brand management. Asatisfied customer can help promote a service or product by posting aglowing review online, or negatively impact a business via a negativecomment.

Accordingly, what is desired is a system and method that allows abusiness to monitor the social media landscape for posts, mentions,conversations, blogs, and other chatter (generally referred to as postsor social media interactions) about the business to determine whetherthe business is to respond to such posts by, for example, engaging inconversation with the authors of such posts. To facilitate suchengagement, it is further desired for the system and method to enablethe business to interact with an author of a post via the same socialmedia channel, and to switch to another media channel where it would bemore desirable to continue the interaction via the different mediachannel. However, customer contact centers often do not have access tousers' social media identifiers (e.g. Twitter handle, Facebook ID, orthe like), and thus, there is no link between such social mediaidentifiers and information typically stored in a customer relationdatabase (e.g. customer's account number, email address, phone number,and the like). Accordingly, it is desirable to make the link between theoriginal social media interaction and the new interaction when switchingto the new interaction channel.

SUMMARY

According to one embodiment, a method for engaging in cross-channelcommunication between an agent and a user of a contact center, themethod including: engaging the user in a first communication session viaa first communication channel; providing the user a link to a secondcommunication channel; receiving actuation of the link; retrieving dataassociated with the first communication session in response to actuationof the link; and engaging the user in a second communication session viathe second communication channel, wherein the second communicationsession is associated with the retrieved data associated with the firstcommunication session.

According to one embodiment, the agent engaged with the user in thefirst communication session is same as the agent engaged with the userin the second communication session.

According to one embodiment, the link contains information identifyingthe first communication session.

According to one embodiment, the link contains information identifyingthe user.

According to one embodiment, the link is encrypted.

According to one embodiment, the link to the second communicationchannel is a hyperlink.

According to one embodiment, the link is associated with a timestamp.

According to one embodiment, the timestamp identifies a period duringwhich the link may be accessed.

According to one embodiment, the engaging is further performed bylimiting the number of times the link may be accessed.

According to one embodiment, the engaging is further performed byrequesting account verification information from the user uponinitializing the second communication session.

According to one embodiment, the first communication channel is a socialmedia channel.

According to one embodiment, the second communication channel is a chatchannel.

According to one embodiment, a system for engaging in cross-channelcommunication between an agent and a user of a contact center, thesystem including: a processors; and a memory, wherein the memory hasstored thereon instructions that, when executed by the processor, causethe processor to: engage the user in a first communication session via afirst communication channel; provide the user a link to a secondcommunication channel; receive actuation of the link; retrieve dataassociated with the first communication session in response to actuationof the link; and engage the user in a second communication session viathe second communication channel, wherein the second communicationsession is associated with the retrieved data associated with the firstcommunication session.

According to one embodiment, the agent engaged with the user in thefirst communication session is same as the agent engaged with the userin the second communication session.

According to one embodiment, the link contains information identifyingthe first communication session.

According to one embodiment, the link contains information identifyingthe user.

According to one embodiment, the link to the second communicationchannel is a hyperlink.

According to one embodiment, the link is associated with a timestampidentifying a period during which the link may be accessed.

According to one embodiment, the instructions further cause theprocessor to limit the number of times the link may be accessed.

According to one embodiment, the first communication channel is a socialmedia channel.

As is readily apparent, providing a business the capability to monitorthe social media landscape for messages and comments that are relevantto the business's products and brand and enabling it to engage authorsof such posts through social media tools may allow the business toimprove its brand recognition and reputation online and potentiallylimit the effect of online posts that may tarnish its brand image.

As a person of skill in the art will appreciate, enabling an agent toseamlessly communicate across channels while preserving a link to theoriginal message and giving the agent access to a customer's profile andinteraction history information may help to expedite and improve theoverall quality of the customer service provided by the contact centeragent and, as a result, positively impact the business supported by thecontact center.

These and other features, aspects, and advantages of the presentinvention will be more fully understood when considered with respect tothe following detailed description, appended claims, and accompanyingdrawings. Of course, the actual scope of the invention is defined by theappended claims.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 a is a schematic block diagram of a system supporting a contactcenter that is configured to route incoming and outgoing customeractivity to customer service agents, according to some exemplaryembodiments;

FIG. 1 b is a schematic block diagram of a system supporting socialengagement in a contact center, according to some exemplary embodiments;

FIG. 2 is a flow diagram of a process for discovering a social mediapost relevant to the business and engaging the post's author, accordingto an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 3 a is a screen shot of a graphical user interface (GUI) renderedupon delivery of a social post to an agent's desktop, according to anembodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 3 b is a screen shot of a GUI rendered upon delivery of a socialpost to an agent's desktop, further depicting a feature of theinteraction workspace that enables an agent to respond to a tweetedpost, according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 3 c is a screen shot of a GUI rendered upon delivery of a socialpost to an agent's desktop, further depicting a feature of theinteraction workspace that enables an agent to respond to a tweeted postfrom within the interaction workspace, according to an embodiment of thepresent invention;

FIG. 3 d is a screen shot of a GUI rendered upon delivery of a socialpost to an agent's desktop, further depicting a feature of theinteraction workspace that enables an agent to send a direct response toa tweeted post from within the interaction workspace, according to anembodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 3 e is a screen shot of a GUI rendered upon delivery of a socialpost to an agent's desktop, further depicting a feature of theinteraction workspace that enables an agent to retweet a Twitter post tothe organization's followers from within the interaction workspace,according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 3 f is a screen shot of a GUI rendered upon delivery of a socialpost to an agent's desktop, further depicting a feature of theinteraction workspace that enables an agent to retweet with comments aTwitter post to the organization's followers from within the interactionworkspace, according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 4 a is a screen shot of a GUI rendered upon delivery of a Facebookpost to an agent's desktop, according to an embodiment of the presentinvention;

FIG. 4 b is a screen shot of a GUI rendered upon delivery of a Facebookpost to an agent's desktop, further depicting the additional data on theoriginal author and post, according to an embodiment of the presentinvention;

FIG. 4 c is a screen shot of a GUI rendered upon delivery of a Facebookpost to an agent's desktop, further depicting the additional data on thewall where the message was posted, according to an embodiment of thepresent invention;

FIG. 4 d is a screen shot of a GUI rendered upon delivery of a Facebookpost to an agent's desktop, further depicting the capability for theagent to, for example, comment on the post or delete as may benecessary, according to an embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 4 e is a screen shot of a GUI rendered upon delivery of a Facebookpost to an agent's desktop, further depicting the text box that appearswhen an agent clicks the comment button, according to an embodiment ofthe present invention;

FIG. 4 f is a screen shot of a GUI rendered upon delivery of a Facebookpost to an agent's desktop, further depicting the capability to view apost's entire conversation thread, according to an embodiment of thepresent invention;

FIG. 5 a is a dual view of a Twitter user's desktop and an agent's GUIrendered upon delivery of a Twitter post to an agent's desktop,according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 5 b is a dual view of a Twitter user's desktop and an agent's GUIrendered upon delivery of a Twitter post to an agent's desktop, furtherdepicting the agent sending the user a link to initiate a chat session,according to an exemplary embodiment of the present invention;

FIG. 5 c is a dual view of a Twitter user's desktop and an agent's GUIrendered upon initiating a chat session, according to an exemplaryembodiment of the present invention; and

FIG. 5 d is a dual view of a Twitter user's desktop and an agent's GUIrendered while engaging the user through a chat session, according to anexemplary embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 e is an exemplary view of a Twitter user's desktop rendered uponinitiating a chat session, according to an embodiment of the presentinvention.

FIG. 5 f is a view of an agent's GUI rendered while engaging the userthrough a chat session, according to an embodiment of the presentinvention.

FIG. 6 a is an exemplary flow of message exchanges between variouscomponents involved in switching conversation from a social mediachannel to another communication channel, according to one embodiment ofthe present invention.

FIG. 6 b is an exemplary message flow that may occur in order toescalate a social message exchange over Twitter to a private chatsession, according to one embodiment of the present interaction.

FIG. 6 c is an exemplary message flow that may occur in order toescalate a social message exchange over Twitter to a private chatsession, further demonstrating the use of other information that may betransmitted along with a link to identify interactions, according to oneembodiment of the present interaction.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following detailed description, only certain exemplaryembodiments of the present invention are shown and described, by way ofillustration. As those skilled in the art would recognize, the inventionmay be implemented in many different forms and should not be construedas being limited to the embodiments set forth herein. Like referencenumerals designate like elements throughout the specification.

In general terms, embodiments of the present invention are directed to asystem and method for providing contact center services for differentbusiness enterprises and government entities, which enable suchorganizations to effectively integrate social media dialogues andinformation into their customer service infrastructures. To that end,media servers monitor an organization's social accounts (e.g. theTwitter account(s) and Facebook page(s) associated with theorganization) and query posts that mention, for example, theorganization's name, products, and/or brands from social siteapplication programming interfaces (APIs) at preset time intervals.Returned messages are then analyzed, categorized, and prioritized basedon the business's social media policies and/or objectives. Naturallanguage processing may be used to review the messages for actionability(e.g. a customer looking for assistance) and sentiment (e.g. positive,negative, or neutral in tone).

According to an embodiment of the present invention, a message'sactionability and sentiment as well as the author's business value tothe organization and level of influence in the social sphere may bedetermined and used in prioritizing and distributing interactions toagents. According to one aspect, an author's level of influence may begauged using information provided by a third-party influence servicesuch as Klout (http://klout.com). The prioritized messages are thendistributed to contact center agents who may engage the messages'authors as necessary. According to an embodiment of the presentinvention, an agent may access a desktop component providing aninteraction workspace for a consolidated, cross-channel view of theauthor's profile information and interaction history with theorganization, and gain access to standard responses and/or theorganization's knowledge base. This allows the agent to “connect thedots” and provide a correct, consistent reply to the customer.

During a communication between an agent and a customer, it may bedesirable to escalate the conversation to a different media channel.Such a change may be prompted by an opportunity to exchange privateinformation or a desire for a more extensive dialogue uninhibited bychannel related constraints such as, for example, character limitations(e.g. 140 characters that are allowed for Twitter messages). In such ascenario, the customer is typically asked to call in, send an email, orinitiate a web chat from the company's web page. In so doing, thecustomer often has to manually change applications and/or devices andmanually initiate the new interaction. This often results in a loss ofconnection to the previous interaction and therefore the customer istreated generically, i.e., given no special priority or chance of lastagent routing and may face a potentially long queue time and have torepeat his/her identifying information to a newly assigned agent.Furthermore, if the customer identification information used for thesocial media interaction is not available to the contact center (e.g. ina customer relations management database), the contact center may not beable to associate the prior social media communication to the currentinbound interaction for which a different identification information isprovided. In this case, the newly assigned agent may not have anycontext of the earlier social media communication. According toembodiments of the present invention, cross-channel communicationprovides a convenient way to transition from one communication channelto another one, without losing the context of the conversation or theauthor's identification information.

FIG. 1 a is a schematic block diagram of a system supporting a contactcenter that is configured to route incoming and outgoing customeractivities to customer service agents, according to some exemplaryembodiments. The contact center may be an in-house facility to abusiness or corporation for serving the enterprise in performing thefunctions of sales and service relative to the products and servicesavailable through the enterprise. In another aspect, the contact centermay be a third-party service provider. The contact center may be hostedin equipment dedicated to the enterprise or third-party serviceprovider, and/or hosted in a remote computing environment such as, forexample, a private or public cloud environment with infrastructure forsupporting multiple contact centers for multiple enterprises.

According to some exemplary embodiments, the contact center includesresources (e.g. personnel, computers, and telecommunication equipment)to enable delivery of services via telephone or other communicationmechanisms. Such services may vary depending on the type of contactcenter, and may range from customer service to help desk, emergencyresponse, telemarketing, order taking, and the like.

Customers, potential customers, or other end users desiring to receiveservices from the contact center may initiate inbound interactions withthe contact center via their end user devices 10 a-10 c (collectivelyreferenced as 10). Each of the end user devices 10 may be acommunication device conventional in the art, such as, for example, atelephone, wireless phone, smart phone, personal computer, electronictablet, and/or the like. Users operating the end user devices 10 mayinitiate, manage, and respond to telephone calls, emails, chats, textmessaging, web-browsing sessions, and other multi-media transactions. Inthis regard, the end user devices 10 may be equipped with a web browseror other like application for accessing information over the World WideWeb.

Inbound and outbound interactions from and to the end users devices 10may traverse a telephone, cellular, and/or data communication network 14depending on the type of device that is being used. For example, thecommunications network 14 may include a private or public switchedtelephone network (PSTN), local area network (LAN), private wide areanetwork (WAN), and/or public wide area network such as, for example, theInternet. The communications network 14 may also include a wirelesscarrier network including a code division multiple access (CDMA)network, global system for mobile communications (GSM) network, and/orany 3G or 4G network conventional in the art.

According to one exemplary embodiment, the contact center includes aswitch/media gateway 12 coupled to the communications network 14 forreceiving and transmitting calls between end users and the contactcenter. The switch/media gateway 12 may include a telephony switchconfigured to function as a central switch for agent level routingwithin the center. In this regard, the switch 12 may include anautomatic call distributor, a private branch exchange (PBX), an IP-basedsoftware switch, and/or any other switch configured to receiveInternet-sourced calls and/or telephone network-sourced calls. Accordingto one exemplary embodiment of the invention, the switch is coupled to acall server 18 which may, for example, serve as an adapter or interfacebetween the switch and the remainder of the routing, monitoring, andother call-handling systems of the contact center.

The contact center may also include a multimedia/social media server 24for engaging in media interactions other than voice interactions withthe end user devices 10 and/or web servers 32. The media interactionsmay be related, for example, to email, vmail (voice mail through email),chat, video, text-messaging, web, social media, screen-sharing, and thelike. The web servers 32 may include, for example, social interactionsite hosts for a variety of known social interaction sites to which anend user may subscribe, such as, for example, Facebook, Twitter,LinkedIn, Pinterest, and the like. The web servers may also provide webpages for the enterprise that is being supported by the contact center.End users may browse the web pages and get information about theenterprise's products and services. The web pages may also provide amechanism for contacting the contact center, via, for example, web chat,voice call, email, web real time communication (WebRTC), or the like.

According to some exemplary embodiments of the invention, the switch iscoupled to an interactive voice response (IVR) server 34. The IVR server34 is configured, for example, with an IVR script for querying customerson their needs. For example, a contact center for a bank may tellcallers, via the IVR script, to “press 1” if they wish to get an accountbalance. If this is the case, through continued interaction with theIVR, customers may complete service without needing to speak with anagent.

If the incoming interaction, henceforth referred to as incoming customeractivity, is to be routed to an agent, the call server 18 will interactwith a routing server 20 for finding the most appropriate agent forprocessing the incoming activity. The call server 18 may be configuredto process PSTN calls, VoIP calls, and the like. For example, the callserver 18 may include a session initiation protocol (SIP) server forprocessing SIP calls. According to some exemplary embodiments, the callserver 18 may, for example, extract data about the customer interactionsuch as the caller's telephone number, often known as the automaticnumber identification (ANI) number, or the customer's interne protocol(IP) address, or email address.

In some embodiments, the call server 18 may also query a customerdatabase, which stores information about existing clients, such ascontact information, service level agreement (SLA) requirements, natureof previous customer contacts and actions taken by contact center toresolve any customer issues, and the like. The database may be managedby any database management system conventional in the art, such asOracle, IBM DB2, Microsoft SQL server, Microsoft Access, PostgreSQL,MySQL, FoxPro, and SQLite, and may be stored in a mass storage device30. The call server 18 may query the customer information from thecustomer database via an ANI or any other information collected by theIVR 34. The information may then be relayed to the agent device 38 ofthe agent who is processing the call.

In one example, while an agent is being located and until such agentbecomes available, the call server 18 may place an incoming customeractivity in, for example, a customer activity queue. The activity queuemay be implemented via any data structure conventional in the art, suchas, for example, a linked list, array, and/or the like. The datastructure may be maintained, for example, in buffer memory provided bythe call server 18.

Once an appropriate agent is available to handle a customer activity,the activity may be removed from the customer activity queue andtransferred to a corresponding agent device 38 a-38 c (collectivelyreferenced as 38). Collected information about the customer and/or thecustomer's historical information from the customer database may also beprovided to the agent device for aiding the agent in better servicingthe call. In this regard, each agent device 38 may include a telephoneadapted for regular telephone calls, VoIP calls, and the like. The agentdevice 38 may also include a computer for communicating with one or moreservers of the contact center and performing data processing associatedwith contact center operations and for interfacing with customers via avariety of communication mechanisms such as chat, instant messaging,voice calls, and the like.

The selection of an appropriate agent for routing an inbound or outboundcustomer activity may be based, for example, on a routing strategyemployed by the routing server 20, and based on information about agentavailability, skills, preferences, and other routing parametersprovided, for example, by a statistics server 22.

According to some exemplary embodiments, the media servers 24 may beconfigured to detect user presence on different websites includingsocial media sites, and may also be configured to monitor and trackinteractions on those websites.

The contact center may also include a reporting server 28 configured togenerate reports from data aggregated by the statistics server 22. Suchreports may include near real-time reports or historical reportsconcerning the state of resources, such as, for example, average waitingtime, abandonment rate, agent occupancy, and the like. The reports maybe generated automatically or in response to specific requests from arequestor (e.g. agent/administrator, contact center application, and/orthe like).

According to some exemplary embodiments of the invention, the routingserver 20 is enhanced with functionality for managingback-office/offline activities that are assigned to the agents. Onceassigned to an agent, an activity may appear in the agent's workbin 26a-26 c (collectively referenced as 26) as a task to be completed by theagent. The agent's workbin may be implemented via any data structureconventional in the art, such as, for example, a linked list, array,and/or the like. The workbin may be maintained, for example, in buffermemory of each agent device 38. The activity may also be pushed to theagent device via, for example, a pop-up message, for acceptance orrefusal in real time.

According to some exemplary embodiments, in addition to storing agentpreference data, the mass storage device 30 also stores data related tocontact center operation such as, for example, information related toagents, customers, customer activities, and the like. The mass storagedevice may take form of a hard disk or disk array as is conventional inthe art.

According to some exemplary embodiments, the system also includes anoutgoing contact server (OCS) 42 for scheduling, initiating, and/ormanaging, outgoing interactions. For example, the OCS may store anoutgoing contact list and may interface with the routing server 20 toenable an agent to partake in an outgoing activity to, for example,upsell current customers, solicit new businesses, seek donations forcharitable organizations, or reach out to customers who have requestedtechnical assistance. According to some embodiments, the OCS 42 mayfurther interact with the IVR 34 for placing outgoing calls.

The various servers of FIG. 1 a may each include one or more processorsexecuting computer program instructions and interacting with othersystem components for performing the various functionalities describedherein. The computer program instructions are stored in a memoryimplemented using a standard memory device, such as, for example, arandom access memory (RAM). The computer program instructions may alsobe stored in other non-transitory computer readable media such as, forexample, a CD-ROM, flash drive, or the like. Also, although thefunctionality of each of the servers is described as being provided bythe particular server, a person of skill in the art will recognize thatthe functionality of various servers may be combined or integrated intoa single server, or the functionality of a particular server may bedistributed across one or more other servers without departing from thescope of the embodiments of the present invention.

FIG. 1 b is a more detailed schematic block diagram of certaincomponents of the system of FIG. 1 a for supporting social engagement ina contact center, according to one exemplary embodiment. According tothe illustrated embodiment, the media server 24 is configured tointerface with social media platforms 100 such as Twitter, Facebook,RSS, and Radian6 over the communications network 14, to bring socialmedia interactions into the contact center system. The media server mayalso be configured to receive and transmit other non-telephonyinteractions such as, for example, text, chat, web interactions, and thelike. The media server 24 may include pluggable media channel drivers,such as, for example, a Twitter driver and Facebook driver that connectthe media server 24 to Twitter and Facebook web servers, respectively.Other channel drivers may include RSS drivers, Radian6 drivers, or anyother custom interface for connecting to any type of social site.According to one embodiment, each channel driver submits data from amedia source to the business process (or strategy) that is executed bythe interaction server 44 and processes the requests that it receivesfrom the strategy. Communication between the channel drivers and theinteraction server 44 may be facilitated, for example, by an externalservice protocol (ESP) server.

Based on the information received from supported social mediaapplication programming interfaces (APIs), the media server 24 createsan interaction and delivers the interaction along with any associateddata to the interaction server 44. According to one embodiment, all orportions of the interaction are stored in the mass storage device 30 viaa universal contact server (UCS) 102. The UCS 102 may be configured tomaintain and provide customer contact profiles, including customercontact information (e.g. names, addresses, phone numbers, etc.),contact history (previous interactions with the contact center), andother data used in processing interactions, such as standard responsesand screening rules.

According to one embodiment, the interaction server 44 acts as centralhub for managing and processing interactions according to one or morebusiness processes. The business processes may employ a classificationserver 46 to classify the interaction and determine the post's sentimentand actionability as well as the influence and value of the post'sauthor. According to one embodiment, these data points provide a basisfor prioritizing the interaction. Other data points in addition to or inlieu of actionability, sentiment, and influence may be considered inprioritizing the interaction. For example, a value rating of the authormay also be taken into account. The author's value rating may beretrieved by accessing the company's customer database or customerrelationship management (CRM) model. According to one embodiment, CRM isimplemented for managing a company's interactions with customers,clients, and sales prospects. It often involves organizing, automating,and synchronizing business processes such as, sales, marketing, customerservice, and technical support activities, with the goal of maintainingand expanding the current pool of clients.

When the business process run by the interaction server determines thatan agent response should be provided after analyzing and classifying theinteraction, the interaction may be either delivered or queued fordelivery to an agent. For example, the interaction may be queued in asocial message queue for social media interactions.

According to one embodiment, the contact center system includes a rulesengine 106 configured to apply one or more business rules based on inputdata, and provide a result in response. The rules may be invoked, forexample, for assigning a priority to an interaction based on dataassociated with the interaction. The rules may be configured toconsider, for example, actionability, sentiment, influence, and thelike, and output a priority value as a result of applying the rule. Inone aspect, the rules may be invoked for managing social message queuesat the contact center in accordance with social media SLAs.

A workload distribution system may also interact with the interactionserver 44 for receiving, generating, and/or distributing tasks to theagents. The task may or may not be related to a social media interactionbetween an agent and a customer. The workload distribution system may bea standalone system or incorporated into one or more components of thecontact center, such as, for example, the rules engine 106.

According to one embodiment, the agent devices 38 invoked to engage insocial media interactions with customers may each include an agentdesktop 104 having a monitor and one or more input devices (e.g.keyboard and mouse). The agent desktop 104 may be configured withvarious plugins (e.g. a Twitter plugin, a Facebook plugin, a RSS plugin,a Radian6 plugin, or the like) and may provide the agent with graphicaluser interface (GUI) tools for handling social media tasks. These toolsmay, for example, provide the agent the ability to send and receiveprivate and public messages, access an author's original post or commentfrom the agent's browser pane, delete spam or objectionable content,enter disposition codes to assign a business outcome to the agent'sactions, and the like. Once a reply is sent by the agent, it may beprocessed by the business process/strategy employed by the interactionserver 44, and delivered back to the media server 24 for delivery to thecustomer through the social site's API.

FIG. 2 a is a flow diagram of an exemplary process 200 for discovering asocial media post relevant to a business and engaging the post's author,according to an embodiment of the present invention. This and otherfollowing processes may be described in terms of a software routineexecuted by one or more processors based on computer programinstructions stored in memory. A person of skill in the art willrecognize, however, that the process may be executed via hardware,firmware (e.g. via an ASIC), or in combination of software, firmware,and/or hardware. Furthermore, the sequence of steps of the process isnot fixed, but may be altered into any desired sequence as recognized bya person of skill in the art.

In step 202, the media server 24 monitors social media sites such asFacebook and Twitter and captures and queues interactions (e.g. posts)that mention the business's name, products, brands, etc. The mediaserver 24 may, for example, wait for messages to be sent to theorganization's social accounts (e.g. their Facebook or Twitter account)by the site's API. The media server 24 may also seek out posts thatmention the company's name, products, brands, etc., by employing a querymechanism, which may include providing a list of search terms which adeployment partner (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc.) crafts into aquery. The query may be run on the social site's API at configurabletime intervals (e.g. every ten minutes or 30 seconds, etc.) and themessages that are available to the API (private messages often are not)may be returned. According to one embodiment, in addition to theoriginal post, the media server 24 may capture related messages asdetermined by preset criteria.

The media server 24 may also invoke a notification medium such as ReallySimple Syndication (RSS) to receive notification of web feeds relevantto the contact center. An organization may create an RSS “feed” from anews site, blog, forum, etc. The web feed dynamically sends to the mediaserver 24 messages as they appear on various sites. RSS feeds typicallyinclude some standard information, such as, for example, the originatingsite's name, author's information, title, description of and a link tothe content.

According to one embodiment, the captured social media interactions arestored in the universal contact server 102 in association with theauthor (contact) of the interaction. The interaction may then betransmitted to the interaction server 44 for analysis (e.g. of the titleand description) for actionability, sentiment, and the like.

According to one embodiment, the media server 24 may also employthird-party social monitoring services such as Radian6 for pullingmessages from different social sites and delivering them to the contactcenter.

In step 204, the interaction server 44 invokes the classification server46 to analyze the content of the captured social media interaction forparticular attributes such as, for example, actionability and sentiment.According to one embodiment, the classification server 46 accesses anatural language processing (NLP) engine for parsing the text of theinteraction and classifying/categorizing it to one or more modelsprovided by, for example, the UCS 102, according to any conventionalmechanism. The NLP engine may be configured to classify the interactionvia pattern-matching, to models of a desired value, which may include,for example, actionable and non-actionable, positive, negative andneutral sentiment, or models for product types or services. Theseanalytical models may be hardcoded by the contact center provider or maybe constructed based on the organization's actual messages so that themodels match the tone, language, and style associated with theorganization's customer communications. In formulating the models, themessages may be distilled by first removing the words that don't addmeaning (e.g. “the,” “of,” “a,” “to,” etc.) and reducing the remainingwords to their root or lexeme.

A social media interaction to be analyzed may follow a similar processbefore it is compared to the model through pattern matching. The resultof the pattern matching process may be, in one example, a number from1-100 (or a percentage point) that indicates how well the interactionmatches the model with high numbers indicating a good match, and lownumbers indicating a poor match. The business process or strategy maytake the results of the NLP to determine which attribute to assign tothe interaction. For example, in the case of actionability, theclassification server 46 may test the new interaction against anactionable and non-actionable model. The result with the higher numberindicates the best match, so that attribute is assigned. Additionally,multiple attributes (or categories) may be assigned to the interactionsthrough multiple NLP steps to analyze the message. According to anembodiment, a reviewing contact center administrator or agent may, viahis or her desktop 104, manually adjust the actionability or sentimentvalues determined by the classification server 46. The adjustment maybe, for example, to correct for any errors that may arise as a result ofthe NLP's inability to, for example, correctly detect sarcasm or irony.

In step 206, the interaction server 44 invokes the rules engine 106 toprioritize the captured interactions based on interaction attributessuch as, for example, the actionability of the message, the sentiment ofthe message, the business value of the author, and the social (ornetwork) influence of the author, or any subset thereof. For example,the interaction server 44 may be configured to pass to the rules engine106 one or more of the interaction attributes and receive, in return, apriority value for the interaction.

With respect to actionability, the classification server 46 may, uponanalysis of an interaction, determine a degree of actionability of theinteraction. For example, actionable messages may request assistance,pose a question, and the like. Other messages may be simple comments,which may not warrant any specific action, in which case theclassification server may be configured to assign a low ornon-actionability value to the interaction. Messages that are considerednon-actionable may be routed as low priority, or simply ignored, basedon a low priority value assigned to the message upon invocation of therules.

With respect to sentiment, the interaction server 44 may, for example,receive from the rules engine a higher priority value for interactionsthat carry a negative sentiment/tone than those that have a positive orneutral tone, recognizing that people are generally likely to rememberand pass on bad news rather than good news. In one aspect, a messagewith a neutral tone from a previously very positive customer may begiven higher priority. In certain instances, an interaction with apositive sentiment may be deemed to be actionable and hence, given ahigher priority for engaging the customer, to encourage him or her totake additional actions to promote the company. For example, if apreviously negative customer is now satisfied and posts a comment with apositive sentiment, the rules engine may be configured to engage thecustomer to, for example, become a member of an advisory board, post a“like” for the business on Facebook, and/or the like.

According to one embodiment, the rules consider a value (to theenterprise's business) of an author of an interaction, as a factor inprioritizing the message. The author's value may be determined based on,for example, the author's general status as a “Gold,” “Silver,” or“Bronze” client. The author's value may also be determined based onimpending business opportunities with the author, such as, for example,a pending insurance policy renewal, in the case of an insurance company,or a pending loan application, in the case of a bank.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, the influence ofthe author of an interaction is further considered in assigning apriority value to the interaction. Influence may refer to the reach ofone's online social network, and may be determined based on the size ofthe person's online social network. The size of the person's onlinesocial network may be based on the number of people that are directly orindirectly connected to the person over the online social media network.Influence of a particular person may be calculated, for example, basedon the number of followers that the person has on Twitter, the number offollowers that the person's followers have, the number of friends theperson has on Facebook, the number of friends that the person's friendshave, the number of messages the person posts on average, the number ofposts that are forwarded, resent, or shared to others in the person'ssocial network, and/or the like. According to one example, the rules maybe configured to consider an author's influence level in assigning apriority to an interaction if the influence level is above a certainthreshold. An author's influence may be obtained, for example, from athird-party influence engine such as Klout.

According to one embodiment, prioritizing an interaction based onactionability, sentiment, influence, and value, as well as othervariables, may be dependent on the business process or strategyreflected by the business rules applied by the rules engine. Forexample, one rule may be that if an interaction is actionable, sentimentis negative, and influence is high, a high priority is assigned to theinteraction. Another rule may be that if the author of an interaction ishighly influential and sentiment is negative, a high priority isassigned to the interaction even if the interaction is not classified asbeing actionable. Conversely, a negative message posted by an author whohas a very low social influence value may be ignored and not routed toany agent if the interaction is not classified as being actionable.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, a contact centersupervisor or administrator may manually adjust the priority given to aparticular interaction, or adjust one or more of its attributes (e.g.actionability, sentiment, and/or the value and influence of its author),via a graphical user interface provided by the supervisor oradministrator's desktop 104. According to one aspect, an agent may alsohave the ability to adjust one or more of the interaction attributesupon reviewing the interaction. In one embodiment, the adjustments madeby the agent and/or administrator may be used as a feedback mechanismfor improving the pattern matching algorithm and classification processemployed by the classification server 46.

In step 208, the routing server 20 is invoked by the interaction server44 for distributing the prioritized interaction to an available agentaccording to a routing strategy. The routing strategy may consider, forexample, business rules, service level agreements (or more specifically,social media SLAs), agent skills and preferences, the desired agentskills for handling the given social post, and/or the like. According toone embodiment, one or more attributes of the prioritized interactionare transmitted to the routing server 20 along with a routing request.The routing strategy that is employed may be configured to consider theone or more attributes in making a routing decision. For example, therouting strategy may assign interactions that have a negative sentimentto one or more of a special group of agents that may have trainingand/or experience in handling disgruntled customers.

According to one embodiment of the present invention, the influence of acustomer contacting a contact center is an attribute that is taken intoaccount by the routing strategy in making a routing decision. Forexample, the routing strategy may be such that interactions by customerswith a high influence are routed to specific groups of agents. Forexample, if the customer is assigned an overall influence score that isabove 90% as calculated via any known influence calculating algorithm,an interaction by the customer may be routed to the agents with thehighest skill level. As with priorities, supervisors or administratorsmay manually adjust message distribution via the graphical userinterface on the administrator's desktop 104.

In step 210, an assigned agent receives the interaction operational data(e.g. text of the social media post) on his/her desktop 104 and engagesthe author of the interaction. In this regard, a task generated for theinteraction may be pushed to the agent's desktop 104 for acceptance orrefusal. The task may also be queued in the agent's workbin 26 forretrieval when the agent is ready to handle the task. According to oneembodiment, the agent interacts with the customer (at least initially)on the same media channel from which the interaction was captured. Forexample, a Twitter post by the customer may be responded with anotherTwitter post, a Facebook post may be responded with a Facebook comment,or the like.

In one embodiment, the routing strategy may bypass distributing theinteraction to an agent and instead distribute the interaction to anautomated response system for retrieving a ready-made response from astandard response library, based on analysis of the content of theinteraction.

Examples 1-4 below demonstrate the flow of process 200 in four separateuse cases.

Example 1 demonstrates a scenario in which a Twitter message is sent toa business through a mention (by posting a message in the format:“@”+[Twitter account handle]+user message) and both the business processand the assigned contact center agent send a reply. In this example, itis assumed that the company, Genesys, has a Twitter account under thesame name that is being monitored by its contact center. The customeruses his/her Twitter account to post a message: “@Genesys Hello I have aproblem.” The new message is posted into Twitter's special “mentions”folder: “@Genesys”. A contact center's social engagement strategy mayentail the following:

1. The media server 24 captures this message.

2. The interaction server 44 creates an interaction and places it intothe appropriate queue and business process/strategy. The interaction maybe associated with a number of parameters, which may include, forexample, the author's name/username, @mentions and/or relevant key wordscontained in the message, and the like.

3. Customer profile details are received with the message through theTwitter API. The profile details may be attached to the interaction. Alluseful Twitter profile information can also be saved in one of thecontact center's databases operated by, for example, the contactcenter's UCS 102 or context services (CS).

4. The incoming Twitter interaction is processed according to thecontact center rules. Once in the strategy, the interaction may beanalyzed as needed. The classification server 46 can determine if thecustomer is a follower. It can further calculate the customer's businessvalue and influence and the message's sentiment and actionability. Inthis example, the classification server 46 determines that theactionability rating is high, but the author of the post is not afollower of Genesys's Twitter account.

5. The organization has defined its business rules such thatnon-followers are sent a follow request. This allows the agent to assistcustomers over Twitter privately.

6. The business process/strategy creates a follow request tweet such as“Please follow @Genesys for us to assist you.”

7. The tweet is stored in the UCS/CS as an outgoing Twitter message andassociates it with the same interaction.

8. The contact center sends the Twitter message to the customer.

9. The customer sees the tweet and responds by following the @GenesysTwitter account.

10. The original incoming Twitter interaction is delivered to an agent'sdesktop 104. The desktop 104 identifies that this message was directedto the business and the author is a follower of the business's Twitteraccount.

11. The agent reads the incoming Twitter message and sends a privateresponse. Alternatively, the agent may mark this interaction as “Done,”assign a disposition code and not take any further action. In this casethe agent sends a direct message (private message) as a reply.

12. The interaction server 44 creates an interaction in UCS/CS for theoutgoing Twitter interaction and associates it with the same customercontact.

13. The media server 24 submits a reply to the customer.

Example 2 demonstrates a scenario in which a public message thatmentions a company's product name is posted on Twitter and the company'scontact center agent responds via a private message. In this example, itis assumed that the company has configured queries to search the socialsites. These queries may contain certain key words that identify themessage as relevant to the organization. A contact center's socialengagement strategy may entail the following:

1. The media server 24 runs a query and captures this message.

2. The interaction server 44 creates an interaction and places it intothe appropriate queue and business process/strategy. The interaction maybe associated with a number of parameters, which may include, forexample, the author's name/username, @mentions and/or relevant query keywords contained in the message, and the like. The strategy creates theinteraction in the UCS/CS and associates it with the contact.

3. Customer profile details are requested by the strategy. The profiledetails are attached to the interaction. This profile info may berequested specifically for messages not sent to the business eitherdirectly or through a mention.

4. All useful profile Twitter information may also be saved in UCS/CS.

5. The incoming Twitter interaction is processed according to thecontact center rules. Once in the strategy, the message can be analyzedas needed. The classification server 46 can determine if the contact isa follower. It can further calculate the customer's value and influenceand the message's sentiment and actionability.

6. The interaction is delivered to an assigned agent's desktop 104. Thedesktop 104 identifies that this message was not directed to thebusiness and whether or not the author is a follower of the business'sTwitter account (following is required for direct (private) messages).In this example, the post's author is a follower.

7. The agent processes the incoming Twitter message and sends a responseif required. Alternatively, the agent may mark this interaction as“Done,” assign a disposition code and not take any further action. Inthis case the agent sends a direct message (private message) as a reply.

8. The interaction server 44 creates an interaction in UCS 102 foroutgoing Twitter interaction and associates it with the same contact.

9. The strategy submits a reply to the author.

10. The media server 24 sends a reply back to the customer. Depending onthe agent's setting, the media server 24 sends either a regular message,which appears on the customer's timeline, or, as in this case, a directmessage which is delivered to the customer's inbox.

Example 3 demonstrates a scenario in which a Facebook message is postedto a business's Facebook page wall and the contact center agent replieswith a public message. In this example, it is assumed that a businesshas a Facebook account and a number of Facebook pages that it monitors.These pages have walls where customers and page administrators can placeposts and comments. In order to make posts and comments customers needto “like” the particular pages where they want to post. In this example,a customer posts a message on the company's wall and several otherFacebook users later add their comments to this post. A contact center'ssocial engagement strategy may entail the following:

1. The media server 24 queries this page's wall and finds the new postwith comments. The query is run on a configurable timer.

2. The interaction server 44 creates an interaction and places it intothe appropriate queue and business process/strategy. The interactionincludes the original post plus comments which are posted within thequery's timeframe. Additional attributes describing the author's andcommentators' profiles may also be part of the interaction structure.The strategy creates the interaction in UCS/CS and associates it withthe contact(s).

3. Additional request to get more profile info can be sent fromstrategy.

It should be noted that while the interaction representing the initialpost and comments is in queue, further comments could be added to themessage thread. The query may pick up these additional comments andcreate another interaction. It is desirable for these two interactionsto be routed to the same contact center agent. As such, either themessages are delivered to the agent together or the agent may need to benotified of the additional pending interactions.

4. The incoming Facebook interaction is processed according to thecontact center rules and delivered to an agent.

5. The agent processes the incoming Facebook message and sends theresponse if required. Alternatively, the agent may mark this interactionas “Done”, assign a disposition code, and not take any further action.

6. The outgoing Facebook interaction is placed into the appropriatequeue/strategy.

7. The interaction server 44 creates the interaction in UCS/CS for theoutgoing Facebook interaction and associates it with the same contact.This data is accessible/visible in the contact's history with UCS 102.

8. The strategy submits a reply to the customer.

9. The media server 24 sends reply back to the customer.

Example 4 demonstrates a scenario in which an RSS feed notifies thecompany of a blog, news site, or the like, that mentions its product byname and both the business process and the assigned contact center agentsend a reply. In this example, it is assumed that a business has createda blog keyword search using an online search engine such as Google. Thesearch looks for variations of a product name across blog sites searchedby Google. After creating the search and tuning it by subtracting termsto filter the results to just the content that is of interest, an RSSfeed is created. The feed uniform resource locator (URL) is added to themedia server 24. A contact center's social engagement strategy mayentail the following:

1. The search is executed and any new results are captured by the mediaserver 24.

2. The interaction server 44 creates an interaction and places it intothe appropriate queue and business process/strategy. The interactionincludes the RSS message as well as additional parameters that mayinclude the author, title, description and URL of the message ascommonly received along with the RSS message. All RSS information canalso be saved in the UCS/CS.

4. Incoming RSS interaction is processed according to the contact centerrules. Once in the strategy, the interaction can be analyzed as needed.The classification server 46 can determine if the contact exists in thecontact center's customer database. It can further calculate thecustomer's value and influence and the message's sentiment andactionability. In this example, the classification server 46 determinesthat the actionability rating is high but the author of the post is nota known customer.

4. The organization has defined its business rules such that all blogsmentioning the product are sent to agents for review.

5. The incoming RSS interaction is delivered to an assigned agent'sdesktop 104. The desktop 104 identifies that this message was directedto the business and that the author is not a known customer.

6. The agent reads the incoming RSS message containing the title of theblog entry, the description and the author name and decides that theblog is worth reviewing. Alternatively, he/she may find a review is notnecessary and mark this interaction as “Done,” assign a dispositioncode, and not take any further action.

7. To review the blog entry the agent clicks on the URL in the messagewhich opens his/her browser to the blog.

8. The agent reviews the blog and may choose to comment or simply toenter the disposition “No comment necessary” and mark the interaction as“Done.” In this case a comment is warranted.

9. The agent enters a comment on the blog directly and copies the textentered to paste into the “notes” field for later reference.

10. The agent then selects the disposition code “Comment entered” andmarks the interactions as “Done.”

FIGS. 3 a-3 f are screen shots of the interaction workspace graphicaluser interface (GUI) accessible by a contact center agent for engagingan author on Twitter.

FIG. 3 a is a screen shot of a GUI 300 rendered upon delivery of asocial post to an agent's desktop 104, according to an embodiment of thepresent invention. According to this example, when an inbound Twitterpost 302 is delivered to an agent's desktop 104, the agent may see, forexample, the original post 304, the location where the post was found(e.g. “Public Tweet” or “Company Facebook Wall”), and the actionability,sentiment, influence, and value score, as depicted by icons 306. Theseicons 306 may additionally indicate the number of Twitter followers orFacebook friends the author has, the number of tweets or public Facebookmessages the author has posted, whether the individual is a follower ofthe business, whether the business is the follower of the author, and/orthe like.

In some aspects, upon review of a post, an agent may adjust theactionability or sentiment of the message as interpreted by theclassification server 46 using, for example, a drop down window 308.Such a feature may be desirable since natural language processors mayhave difficulty correctly interpreting sarcasm, satire, or irony. Theagent may also be able to follow or unfollow a Twitter user as may beappropriate.

According to one aspect, the agent's desktop 104 may provide access to acustomer's profile 310, which may include, for example, the author'sfirst and last name, address, contact information (such as phone number,email, Twitter/Facebook usernames, etc.) as well as other customizablefields.

In one embodiment, the agent's desktop 104 may provide a view of thecustomer's cross-channel interaction history 312, which may providecontext for the author's post and enable the agent to better respond tothe message. Each social media post and response may be listed, as wellas a transcript of other communications with the author, and anyassociated data and notes taken by the agent in reference to handlingthe customer's request. For example, a consumer who is unhappy with theresults of a call made to the contact center may decide to vent his/herfrustration on Twitter or Facebook. When that post is captured anddistributed to an agent for engagement, the agent may see the details ofthe call in a “Contact History” section of the graphical user interface,which may allow the agent to understand what precipitated the angrytweets, allowing them to intelligently reply to the consumer.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, the agent may setdisposition codes 314 that designate a business outcome for each of thesocial posts assigned to the agent. For example, some messages may notwarrant a response, in which case, the user can set a disposition codeof “No response needed” and proceed to the next message. Additionally,an agent may add any relevant notes 316 to the interaction record forlater reference.

According to an embodiment, for messages that do warrant a response, theagent may be able to reply directly from his/her desktop 104. Thesereplies may be public (anyone can see them) or private (only the senderand recipient can see them). In one example, the agent may be able toselect a “pre-canned” response from the standard response library andedit it as may be necessary before submitting it to the customer. Theinteraction workspace may also be configured to display a suggestedresponse to the agent based on analysis of the message content,according to an embodiment of the invention. In such a case, the agentmay be able to edit the suggested response before replying to thecustomer.

FIG. 3 b is a screen shot of a GUI 300 rendered upon delivery of asocial post to an agent's desktop 104, further depicting a feature ofthe interaction workspace that enables an agent to respond to a tweetedpost, according to an embodiment of the present invention. In thisexample, a dropdown window 318 enables an agent to respond to a tweet byreplying to the tweet, sending a direct message to an author who is afollower of the organization, retweeting the message, or retweeting withadditional comments.

FIG. 3 c is a screen shot of a GUI 300 rendered upon delivery of asocial post to an agent's desktop 104, further depicting a feature ofthe interaction workspace that enables an agent to respond to a tweetedpost from within the interaction workspace, according to an embodimentof the present invention. In this example, the GUI has a field 320 thatallows an agent to respond to the author's post by mentioning the author(e.g. “@MikeSkobar”) in a reply post. According to one aspect, theauthor's name may be populated in the reply field automatically when anagent decides to reply to the author. In one example, the GUI may trackand display the character count of the response. When the count exceedsa limit (e.g. 140 characters for Twitter), any characters in excess maybe highlighted and the alert icon 322 may be displayed and the replybutton 324 may be disabled.

FIG. 3 d is a screen shot of a GUI 300 rendered upon delivery of asocial post to an agent's desktop 104, further depicting a feature ofthe interaction workspace that enables an agent to send a directresponse to a tweeted post from within the interaction workspace,according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 e is a screen shot of a GUI 300 rendered upon delivery of asocial post to an agent's desktop 104, further depicting a feature ofthe interaction workspace that enables an agent to retweet a Twitterpost to the organization's followers from within the interactionworkspace, according to an embodiment of the present invention. Astandard retweet may not allow the message to be edited.

FIG. 3 f is a screen shot of a GUI 300 rendered upon delivery of asocial post to an agent's desktop 104, further depicting a feature ofthe interaction workspace that enables an agent to retweet with commentsa Twitter post to the organization's followers from within theinteraction workspace, according to an embodiment of the presentinvention. In this example, the agent may edit the text of the retweettext as needed.

FIGS. 4 a-4 e are screen shots of the interaction workspace GUIaccessible by a contact center agent for engaging an author on Facebook.

FIG. 4 a is a screen shot of a GUI 400 rendered upon delivery of aFacebook post to an agent's desktop 104, according to an embodiment ofthe present invention. In this example, when an inbound Facebook post isdelivered to an agent's desktop 104, the agent may see the originalpost, which is a Facebook post by John Mob 402 on Macha Ivanova's wall404. Icons 406 may show, for example, the gender of the author, thenumber of likes the message has received (zero in this case), and theactionability and sentiment of the message as determined by theclassification router 46. An information button 408 may show additionaldata on the author and post.

FIG. 4 b is a screen shot of a GUI 400 rendered upon delivery of aFacebook post to an agent's desktop 104, further depicting theadditional data on the original author and post 410, according to anembodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 c is a screen shot of a GUI 400 rendered upon delivery of aFacebook post to an agent's desktop 104, further depicting theadditional data on the wall 412 where the message was posted, accordingto an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 d is a screen shot of a GUI 400 rendered upon delivery of aFacebook post to an agent's desktop 104, further depicting thecapability for the agent to, for example, comment on the post or delete414 as may be necessary, according to an embodiment of the presentinvention. When a comment is posted on a company's Facebook page, anagent may be able to delete the post if he/she determines it isinappropriate, off-topic, or spam.

FIG. 4 e is a screen shot of a GUI 400 rendered upon delivery of aFacebook post to an agent's desktop 104, further depicting the text boxthat appears when an agent clicks the comment button, according to anembodiment of the present invention. In this example, the text boxautomatically inserts the author's Facebook ID.

FIG. 4 f is a screen shot of a GUI 400 rendered upon delivery of aFacebook post to an agent's desktop 104, further depicting thecapability to view a post's entire conversation thread 416, according toan embodiment of the present invention. According to an embodiment, aconversation thread may consist of an initial post and any associatedcomments that were found during the polling period prior to assignmentto an agent. According to another aspect, the conversation thread mayupdate periodically (e.g. at each polling period) so long as an agent isactively assigned to the conversation. Consolidating related messagesmay avoid the situation that multiple agents work on replies to commentson the same post. According to an embodiment, different agents may beassigned to the various comments on the same post. In this example, anagent may comment on each of the Facebook users' responses separatelyleave a comment on the thread. Additionally, an agent may delete any ofthe comments as may be appropriate. As such an agent may in factinteract with more than one party.

Because some posts cannot be understood without context, in anembodiment of the present invention, a button on the desktop 104 mayopen the social site page or blog onto the agent's browser, or this maybe done automatically as a screen pop.

According to an exemplary embodiment of the invention the agent'sgraphical user interface may provide access to the organization'senterprise knowledge base by, for example, providing content that mayinclude standard processes and forms, support information, or productand service overviews. These documents may be shared via a URL (standardor shortened) through social sites.

According to an embodiment, the agent desktop 104 may provide access toa standard response library, which may provide common answers to commonquestions with personalization capabilities. The responses provided mayinclude links to content, attachments, and Field Codes forpersonalization. Field codes may allow the customer's name or social IDto be automatically inserted along with many other values derived fromCRM, customer databases, and/or other external repositories.

Cross-Channel Conversations With Context Aware Transition

According to an embodiment of the present invention, an agent may beable to engage in cross-channel communication with a post's author. Forexample, an inbound tweet could be responded to through short messagingsystem (SMS), a chat session, an email message, a voice call, or a poston another social media channel. Such a change or escalation of mediamay be desirable, for example, to exchange private information (e.g.account number, address information, etc.), to complete a purchasetransaction, to clarify a complaint privately, to have a more extensivedialog without being restrained by channel-related constraints, or thelike. In a typical scenario, the change of communication channel may bemanually invoked by asking the customer to call in, send an email, orinitiate a web chat from the company's web page. In so doing, thecustomer often has to manually change applications and/or devices andmanually initiate the new interaction. This often results in a loss ofconnection to the previous interaction and therefore the customer istreated generically, i.e., given no special priority or chance of lastagent routing and may face a potentially long queue time and have torepeat his/her identifying information to a newly assigned agent.Furthermore, the contact center may not be able to associate the priorsocial media communication to the current interaction over a differentmedia channel due to a lack of access to the customer's social mediaidentifier. Although social site APIs often do provide certain data ontheir users, such as the first and last name provided by the Twitter APIand the full name provided by Facebook, that information may beinadequate for identifying the customer for a number of reasons: 1) auser may not have entered his/her real name and instead used a pseudonym(e.g. “Indiana Jones” or “Speed Racer”) when signing up for the onlinesocial service; 2) a user may not have entered his/her name as itappears in the contact center database (e.g. entered “Joe” instead of“Joseph”); and 3) the contact center database may have more than onerecord with the same name (e.g. two “Joe Smith”s). Thus, the newlyassigned agent may not have context of the earlier social mediacommunication.

A system and method for cross-channel communication may allow an agentto initiate or invite a customer to a smooth transition from one mediumto another while maintaining the connection to and the context of theoriginal (or parent) interaction. According to one embodiment, an agentmay send a customer a link (through a public or private message) to anapplication or service, which may include, for example, a webapplication, a mobile application, a cloud service, or the like. Such alink may, for example, point to a chat application, and an actuation ofthe link by the customer may initiate the chat dialog. An advantage ofthis approach may be that the customer may not need to download aspecialized plugin or application to initiate the new session and thenew session may launch in a browser window on the customer's devicewithout the need for the customer to manually navigate to any particularcontact page. Depending on the channels and application used the newinteraction may even be established automatically by the application orservice.

In addition to acting as a pointer, the link may contain parameters thatprovide reference to the parent interaction (such as, for example, theinteraction identifier of the original tweet), the customer contactrecord, or any other record allowing the linking of this new (child)interaction to the customer and with the parent interaction to allow afull cross-channel conversational view. As such, the new interactionsession may be initiated without the need for the customer to manuallyprovide an identifier or authentication information that may otherwisebe asked for in order to allow identification of any parent interactionsover a social media channel.

The link parameters may be coded in the link, according to oneembodiment, or the link may point to, for example, a record, a resource,a service, or the like, which provides the ability to refer to thecustomer record and/or parent interaction. The customer record mayinclude, for example, the customer's profile information (such as name,phone number, contact number, email, or the like) and/or any previousinteraction between the customer and the contact center, which may helpprovide context for the present interaction. Enabling the agent toeffortlessly access this information may allow the agent to better andmore expediently serve the customer.

According to one embodiment, the link including the additionalparameters may be automatically generated by, for example, theinteraction server 44, and may be made available to the agent throughthe interaction workspace in the form of an automated/standard response.When an agent decides to send a customer the link, he/she may simplyselect the link from the series of standard responses available throughthe standard response library. In another embodiment, an invoked routingstrategy may automatically send the link to the customer in accordancewith a business rule.

According to one embodiment, once the link is received by the customer(via, e.g. a private or public message), the customer may initiate a newinteraction session by actuating (e.g. by clicking) the link. In oneaspect, in response to the actuation of the link, the end user device 10may be configured (e.g. via a web browser application hosted by the userdevice) to send a request for the new interaction to the media server24. In one embodiment, the request may be accompanied by some or all ofthe additional parameters included in the invitation link. Theinteraction server 44 may process the new interaction request and usethe accompanied additional information to identify, for example, theoriginal (parent) interaction, the customer, and the agent who handledthe original interaction. In one embodiment, the processing logicemployed by the interaction server 44 may also treat the new interactionas a child of the original interaction and may link the childinteraction to the customer's interaction history in the mass storagedevice 30. That is, even if the CRM database does not have storedtherein the user ID used for the original social media interaction (e.g.Twitter handle, Facebook ID, etc.), the universal contact server 102may, via information contained in the new interaction, associate theoriginal interaction to a new interaction and maintain context of theconversation even in the new interaction channel. For example, the priorconversation conducted over the original channel may be displayed to theagent.

According to one embodiment, because the new interaction includesreference to the parent interaction, the new child interaction may bedelivered to same agent/representative that handled the initial dialogwith the customer (last agent routing), according to an embodiment ofthe present invention.

The interaction workspace of an agent's desktop 104 may allow the agentto, for example, view and edit (as may be appropriate) any relevantinformation related to the new interaction, such as the customer'sprofile information and interaction history.

In some scenarios it may be desirable to capture additional informationfrom the customer (e.g. email address, customer number, account number,phone number, etc.) for cross validation or other purposes. This may bedone by the agent requesting the input from the customer or may be doneon an application/system level through an automated dialogue before theinteraction is delivered to the agent. According to an embodiment, whenthe contact center is unable to correctly determine the identity of thecustomer, a new record may automatically be created in the customerrelations management database. Once the customer clicks on the link toinitiate, for example, a chat interaction, the customer may be asked forany other identifier (e.g. in a web form field or as part of anautomated chat dialog). Such identifier could be the account number,phone number, email address or any identifier that can be mapped to anexisting customer record. Upon receiving this information, the new andmapped records can be merged to show one contact across traditional andsocial channels.

In another embodiment, customer identification and authentication may beaccomplished by using a third-party authentication routine. For example,a customer may be prompted to log in through one of his/her social siteaccounts (e.g. Facebook or Twitter account) and, after a successfullogin, may automatically be directed back to the child interaction (e.g.in this case, a chat session).

According to one embodiment of the present invention, the link that issent to the customer may be encrypted and or shortened (e.g. by using aURL shortner) as may be necessary.

According to one aspect, the link may be associated with an expirationtime and date. For example, a link to a chat session in response to apost on a company's Facebook wall may remain active for 15 minutes. Anattempt by a customer to access the link after its expiration date mayprompt a message to the customer to contact the organization via apreset method (e.g. contacting customer service through a 1-800 number).Similarly, a link may have a limitation as to how many times it may beused to allow control over usage, according to an embodiment of thepresent invention. When a customer accesses a link, prior toestablishing the child interaction, the expiration date and/or usagecounter may be checked to prevent misuse.

A person of ordinary skill in the art will recognize that while theabove description provides examples for cross-channel communication fromTwitter and Facebook to chat, this feature is not limited to aparticular media type or channel.

FIGS. 5 a-5 f are screen shots of a Twitter user's desktop view and theinteraction workspace GUI accessible by a contact center agent forengaging the user through cross-channel communication. For purpose ofsimplicity in illustration, it is assumed that the Twitter user, LaraSenders, is a follower of the organization with Twitter ID @TheBrandCS.

FIG. 5 a is an exemplary view of a Twitter user's desktop 500 prior toher tweeting a message that mentions the organization.

FIG. 5 b is a view of an agent's GUI 502 rendered upon delivery of aTwitter post to the agent's desktop 104, according to an embodiment ofthe present invention. In this example, the Twitter post by the userappears in the agent's interaction workspace 504. The user's profileinformation and historical view 506 of all previous interactions withthe contact center may be readily accessible to the agent.

FIG. 5 c is a view of an agent's GUI 502 rendered upon delivery of aTwitter post to an agent's desktop 104, further depicting the agentsending the user a link to initiate a chat session, according to anembodiment of the present invention. In this example, the agentretrieves a standard format response 508 from the standard responselibrary 510 for inviting the customer to a direct chat and sends itdirectly to the user.

FIG. 5 d is a view of an agent's GUI 502 rendered upon delivery of achat interaction to an agent's desktop 104, further depicting thecapability of the interaction workspace to display the original tweetand the agent's response as would appear in a Twitter interface 514,according to an embodiment of the present invention. Additionally,clicking on a #hashtag may open a list of messages with the hashtag inTwitter and, similarly, clicking on an @mention may display the profileof the Twitter user association with the @mention in Twitter.

FIG. 5 e is an exemplary view of a Twitter user's desktop 500 renderedupon initiating a chat session, according to an embodiment of thepresent invention. In this example, a private chat session 512 isinitiated upon the user clicking on the link that was provided by theagent.

FIG. 5 f is a view of an agent's GUI 502 rendered while engaging theuser through a chat session, according to an embodiment of the presentinvention. In this example, the agent requests that the user verify heraccount details to ensure proper processing. Upon initiating the chatsession, this interaction 516 is automatically linked to the Twitterpost-and-response parent interaction. As illustrated, this newinteraction is threaded underneath the parent interaction in thecustomer contact history.

FIGS. 6 a-6 c are exemplary flows of message exchanges between variouscomponents involved in switching conversation from a social mediachannel to another communication channel, according to some embodimentsof the present invention. For illustration purposes, in this series ofexamples, it is assumed that the agent and customer initially engage ina social media message exchange via Twitter (by, for example, postingTwitter messages with @mentions), but subsequently escalate the dialogueto a chat session. However, as a person of ordinary skill in the artwill appreciate, the proceeding exemplary processes are substantiallyapplicable to cross-channel communication between any two mediachannels.

In the message flow of FIG. 6 a, in step 610, the customer and agentexchange social messages over Twitter.

In step 612, the agent invites the customer to a chat session by, forexample, sending the customer a link/reference via a private message(e.g. a Twitter message mentioning the customer) or a public postaccessible by any Twitter user. The link may be, for example, ahyperlink or any other word, symbol, image, or element that referencesdata which may be followed automatically. In addition to pointing to achat session, the link may be encoded with additional parameters thatmay include, for example, the interaction ID of the initial tweetexchange (parent interaction), a time stamp indicating when theinvitation was sent out, and the like. According to one embodiment, thelink/invitation may also have an associated access limitation such as anexpiration period and/or a maximum use limitation.

In step 616, the customer actuates the link provided by the agent, whichmay prompt a browser window (such as window 512 of FIG. 5 e) to open onthe customer's desktop establishing a new connection between thecustomer's browser and the media server 24.

In step 618, the browser may send the media server 24 a chat request,which may include any of the parameters that may have been encoded inthe invitation such as the parent interaction identifier or time stamp.

In step 620, the media server may optionally prompt the customer foradditional information. This information may be used to authenticate thecustomer by, for example, requesting verification information, such asname, phone number, email, or the like, from the customer andcross-checking that against existing records for that customer in theCRM database. Authentication may also occur through a third-partyservice by, for example, asking the customer to login to a social site,such as Twitter or Facebook, and relying on the response from the socialsite's API as to whether or not the login attempt was successful. If thelogin was in fact successful, the process may proceed to step 626;otherwise, the customer may be notified of the failure to authenticateand be prompted to, for example, provide verification informationthrough a web form, or another prescribed method. The additionalinformation requested at this step may also be used to supplement thecustomer's contact records at the contact center. For example, a contactcenter may not have the social identifier of the customer with whom itis engaged in social communication, and by asking the customer forhis/her full name, phone number, email, or other identifyinginformation, the contact center may be able to pair the detected socialidentifier of the customer with a preexisting record in the UCS/CS.

In step 626, the media server 24 may check whether or not theinvitation/access link has expired, which may occur if, for example, thelink's expiration period has passed (as may be readily gauged from thetime stamps of the chat invitation and the chat request) and/or theaccess request exceeds the maximum number of times the link may becalled. If the link has expired, the media server 24 may notify thecustomer that a chat session may not be initiated and may direct thecustomer to contact the contact center via a preset method, such ascalling a 1-800 number. If the link has not expired, in step 630, themedia server 24 forwards the chat request to the routing server 20.

In step 632, the routing server may query the universal contact server102 to identify the parent interaction (which the chat request pointsto) and proceed to link the new chat interaction as a child of theparent in the customer contact history maintained by the UCS 102. Therouting server 20 may attach this and other relevant information (suchas customer's contact information, interaction history) to the chatinteraction. According to one embodiment, the routing server 20 may alsoobtain the identity of the agent who handled the parent interaction androute the chat interaction to the same agent.

In step 634, the routing server 20 delivers the chat interaction alongwith any attached information to the agent's desktop 104.

In step 636, the agent and customer may engage in a dialogue over a chatsession.

According to one embodiment, the process above may be executed withoutexecuting steps 620 and 626.

FIG. 6 b demonstrates the message flow that may occur in order toescalate a social message exchange over Twitter to a private chatsession, according to an embodiment of the present interaction. Themessage flow 602 provided in this example is substantially similar toflow 600 of FIG. 6 a with the exception of the additional steps below:

In step 614, subsequent to the agent sending the customer an invitationto join a private chat session in step 612, the routing server 20 mayupdate the customer's interaction records at the UCS 102 and/or open a“service” (or “state” or “task”) in a conversation manager (CM) for achat session associated with the customer. The CM may be deployed as astand-alone server or as part of the UCS 102, and used for contextualdata storage for maintaining records of ongoing services at the contactcenter, which may include, for example, an outgoing campaign to reachout to a select group of customers for sales promotion or to conductsurveys.

In step 622, subsequent to the media server 24 receiving the chatrequest from the customer in step 618 and any customer verification thatmay ensue in step 620, the media server 24 may query the UCS 102 and/orthe CM for any additional information associated with the chatinvitation used in processing the interaction. For example, the UCS 102may provide the contact information of the customer, the customer'sinteraction history, any business rules (processes) associated with thecustomer, and/or an expiration time associated with the chat invitation.The conversation manager may, for example, provide information on openservices associated with the customer. For example, an open service maybe an outgoing campaign to reach out to select customers to notify themof a promotional sale. In this case, it would be beneficial to informthe agent who is assigned to the chat interaction of this open serviceas he/she may be able to discuss the promotional sale with the customerduring the chat dialogue.

FIG. 6 c demonstrates the message flow that may occur in order toescalate a social message exchange over Twitter to a private chatsession, further demonstrating the use of other information that may betransmitted along with a link to identify interactions, according to anembodiment of the present interaction. The message flow 604 provided inthis example is substantially similar to the flow 600 of FIG. 6 a exceptfor differences appearing in the steps below:

In step 612, the chat link that is sent to the customer may be encodedwith information, such as, for example, a unique key. The unique key maybe used, for example, to identify the source interaction. According toan embodiment, the key may, for example, be a multi-digit number.According to an embodiment, keys may be stored in a database tablestored in the mass storage device 30. The database table may associateeach key with other identifying parameters such as interaction ID, timestamp, etc. In step 614, the routing server 20 may create a databaseentry for the key encoded in the chat link in the interaction server 44.

In step 623, subsequent to the media server 24 receiving a chat request(along with the chat invitation key) from the customer in step 618 andany customer verification that may ensue in step 620, media server 24may query the interaction server for the identifying informationassociated with the key. In step 624, the interaction server mayidentify the stored information related to the key from the databasetable and forward that information to the media server 24. Theidentifying information may be attached to the chat request beforeforwarding the request to the routing server in step 630.

As this invention has been described herein by way of exemplaryembodiments, many modifications and variations will be apparent to thoseskilled in the art. Accordingly, it is to be understood that theinvention described herein may be embodied other than as specificallydescribed herein. For example, although the above examples forcross-channel communication focus on transitioning conversation from asocial media channel to a non-social media channel, a person of skill inthe art should recognize that embodiments of the present invention mayalso be applied in transitioning conversation from any two mediachannels.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for engaging in cross-channelcommunication between an agent and a user of a contact center, themethod comprising: engaging the user in a first communication sessionvia a first communication channel; providing the user a link to a secondcommunication channel; receiving actuation of the link; retrieving dataassociated with the first communication session in response to actuationof the link; and engaging the user in a second communication session viathe second communication channel, wherein the second communicationsession is associated with the retrieved data associated with the firstcommunication session.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein an agentengaged with the user in the first communication session is same as theagent engaged with the user in the second communication session.
 3. Themethod of claim 1, wherein the link contains information identifying thefirst communication session.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein the linkcontains information identifying the user.
 5. The method of claim 1,wherein the link is encrypted.
 6. The method of claim 1, wherein thelink to the second communication channel is a hyperlink.
 7. The methodof claim 1, wherein the link is associated with a timestamp.
 8. Themethod of claim 7, wherein the timestamp identifies a period duringwhich the link may be accessed.
 9. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising limiting the number of times the link may be accessed. 10.The method of claim 1, further comprising requesting accountverification information from the user upon initializing the secondcommunication session.
 11. The method of claim 1, wherein the firstcommunication channel is a social media channel.
 12. The method of claim1, wherein the second communication channel is a chat channel.
 13. Asystem for engaging in cross-channel communication between an agent anda user of a contact center, the system comprising: a processors; and amemory, wherein the memory has stored thereon instructions that, whenexecuted by the processor, cause the processor to: engage the user in afirst communication session via a first communication channel; providethe user a link to a second communication channel; receive actuation ofthe link; retrieve data associated with the first communication sessionin response to actuation of the link; and engage the user in a secondcommunication session via the second communication channel, wherein thesecond communication session is associated with the retrieved dataassociated with the first communication session.
 14. The system of claim13, wherein an agent engaged with the user in the first communicationsession is same as the agent engaged with the user in the secondcommunication session.
 15. The system of claim 13, wherein the linkcontains information identifying the first communication session. 16.The system of claim 13, wherein the link contains informationidentifying the user.
 17. The system of claim 13, wherein the link tothe second communication channel is hyperlink.
 18. The system of claim13, wherein the link is associated with a timestamp identifying a periodduring which the link may be accessed.
 19. The system of claim 13,further comprising limiting the number of times the link may beaccessed.
 20. The system of claim 13, wherein the first communicationchannel is a social media channel.